While it delivers some hard-hitting action, this thriller is more successful as a melodrama.
This 1990s-set sequel follows Manhattan teachers who become entangled with a menacing figure: the son of a Peruvian terrorist leader.
Lily Napolitano is a fourth-degree judo black belt and her sensei’s star pupil. But even with her prowess, she can’t fend off multiple assailants one late evening and flees to safety in the midst of gunfire. Because she can’t identify anyone for authorities to make an arrest, Lily settles back into teaching at P.S. 20, a Lower East Side school. The school receives new teachers Luke Natani and Mario DeMaio as well as a new principal, Dr. Seymour Lomsky, who quickly promotes Lily to a job as his assistant. Meanwhile, Paco Ñahui, who spearheaded the attack against Lily, is a criminal establishing a crew in New York. He seems determined to win the approval of his father, who leads a terrorist organization in Peru. As Lomsky’s increasing gambling debts ultimately connect him to the culprit, it’s only a matter of time before Paco finds the woman who escaped the assault. But when Lily proves a formidable and, if necessary, lethal opponent, Paco’s ensuing retribution involves people close to Lily, including her husband, Bobby, and fellow teachers. The early scene of Lily’s attack aptly establishes the protagonist as physically capable and Paco as a vicious baddie. But Rose’s (Lily’s Payback, 2012) urban thriller offers predominantly character development and melodrama. For example, Paco’s crew takes out a rival gang while he recalls—or dreams of—recurrent childhood beatings at his father’s hands. The captivating characters at P.S. 20 include Luke, a Navajo who has a romantic interest in teacher Mimi Purnell and a shocking family secret, and Mario, a former boxer. But when Paco isn’t actively looking for Lily, the pages are free of tension and suspense. It’s only much later, when Lily and her pals band together to try to thwart Paco, that the action picks up, though the inevitable finale is anticlimactic. Rose’s rather plain prose surprisingly tones down the short but periodic sex scenes and instances of violence.
While it delivers some hard-hitting action, this thriller is more successful as a melodrama.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-6585-8
Page Count: 342
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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